|
|
U.S.
Senator Member: Agriculture, Energy, Veterans' Affairs, Ethics and Aging Committees |
|
|
|
||
|
For Immediate
Release August 3, 2006 |
CONTACT: Cody Wertz – Comm. Director 303-455-7600 Andrew Nannis – Press Secretary 202-224-5852 |
|
|
WASHINGTON, D.C. - United States Senator Ken Salazar released the following statement today: “The ‘defecta’ bill represents the wrong way to do business. It will cost more than $750 billion, risking drastic cuts to programs such as first responders, education, Social Security and Medicare. Passage of such fiscally irresponsible policy is doubly reckless at a time of war. “Let me be clear: I support raising the minimum wage. I support extending important tax credits and deductions such as those promoting research and development. I support allowing people to deduct their state and local sales taxes. I support helping middle-class families afford the cost of college. I have voted for each of these proposals several times since I came to the Senate and will support them again. “I also very much support permanent and fiscally responsible estate tax reform that will protect small businesses and farms and ranches. I have been working with moderates in the U.S. Senate to develop a proposal that will fix the problems on the estate tax. “I also disagree with the antics that have been used by the Republican leadership. Holding an increase in the minimum wage and the extension of important middle-class tax relief hostage to irresponsible reform of the estate tax – which at the end of the day affects three-tenths of one percent of all Americans (an estimated 8,100 estates) – is hypocrisy and political posturing of the worst kind. In addition, bringing these proposals to the Senate floor in this manner discourages the open and bipartisan process the Senate should stand for. “This kind of fiscal hypocrisy in Washington heaps more and more debt onto our children, an unfair legacy to future generations of Americans. I don’t believe the people of World War II, the Greatest Generation, my parent’s generation, would be proud of how the United States of America is handling its obligations overseas or at home while at the same time passing on the responsibility for paying those obligations to future generations.”
# # #
|
||
